Camus: Football teaches you how to live

The genesis of the relationship between Albert Camus and football is often reduced to the famous – albeit inaccurate – quote that reads: “Whatever you know about morality, what football does” (I owe what I know about morality to football). However, as we will try to show, these words roughly summarize both 1) Camus' relationship to the ball and 2) the role it played for Camus as a politician, writer and philosopher. First, the actual quote from Camus on morality is significantly different from the above:

“The morality you know is what you are looking for the football pitches and the theater scenes here will remain at my old universities” (The few What I know about morality I learned on football pitches and on theater stages – my real universities).

This quote is longer than the first and also more meaningful. Camus does not limit himself to combining the theatrical element with football – as he does, for example Pasolini – but underlines his insignificance compared to the academic-intellectual world. Camus' “true university” is the small area the friendship fostered in a locker roomthe tears and smiles before and after the ninety minutes, the theatrical space ultimately a reflection of footballing innocence.

When Charles Poncet asks Camus what he prefers between football and theater, he answers: “Football, without hesitation”. Also because in literary theater This populates Albert Camus's production, football is always happening […]